


Heart and Soul

by likehandlingroses



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 16:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15344319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: As his father begins to succumb to the Dark Curse, Neal must face his own demons in order to help Rumple. (A continuation of A Gentle Tether–which is a Season 7 AU where Neal is alive).





	Heart and Soul

Neal lowered his axe, his heart pounding in his chest. Someone—or something—was approaching. The secluded cabin his father had retreated to hadn't received any visitors apart from Neal and Gideon, and as far as Neal knew, no one else aside from Belle knew where they were. Belle wouldn't be back for some weeks, and Neal could think of far more foes that might want access to his father than friends. 

To his surprise, the figure who came tumbling through the trees was a young woman, heavily cloaked for the frigid weather. She stared at Neal with wide, blue eyes, a smile crossing her face. 

"You're Baelfire!" she exclaimed, her breath turning white as it hit the air.

"I know that," Neal said, not willing to bend to the stranger's friendly and familiar demeanor. "And you are?"

"Alice," she said, undeterred by his sternness. "I came to see you father."

"He's not doing business—”

"—I’m not here for that." Alice stepped closer. "We're sort of friends, you see. I come when I can. Just to talk to him. See that he's alright. He's not got anyone else, just now."

Neal bristled at the comment, though Alice didn't look as though she'd meant any harm. 

"I came as soon as I found out," he said. Alice nodded. 

"I knew you would!" she said. "I told him to tell you sooner. Both of you...is the other son here? Oh, what's his name? The scholar?"

"The scholar..." Bae scoffed. Gideon was bright, but he'd been in school for hardly two years. It didn't stop their father from thinking he was the cleverest man in the realms. "Yeah, he's here too. He's with him now."

"May I?" Alice asked, gesturing to the cabin. In spite of himself, Neal smiled. He liked her, and he was sure his father did as well. She wasn't a child, but she had a sweet temper and was just about Gideon's age, and Neal supposed that was enough to pique his father's parental instincts. 

"Sure, sure," he said, waving her away as he went back to his work. Then, hardly knowing why, he called after her. "Hey: what does he call me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Gideon's the scholar. Who am I?"

Alice grinned. "You're both all sorts of things, to him. But I remember you as the strong one."

Neal nodded, unsure of whether the answer made him feel better or worse. 

 

* * *

 

 

When Neal was young, he'd been able to hear his father's ambling step from quite a distance—slow and a bit unsteady, but warm, somehow. It was his father who made their house a home, and when his feet came through the door, everything was right with the world. However, ever since he'd taken on the dark curse, he'd grown lighter, somehow. Even now, even after he'd long since ceased giving into darkness, his father's footsteps hardly registered on the forest floor, and Neal jumped at his sudden presence beside him.

His skin had scaled over again—they didn't yet know why—and his mind had grown unstable, with a tendency to wander off where few could follow. Though he hadn't yet shown any dark tendencies, Neal feared that was the ultimate phase of whatever transformation was occurring. He couldn't leave him alone, and yet he couldn't bear to be around him. Rumple stayed in the cabin with Gideon, who found it easier to forget what they might lose. He hadn't seen their father succumb to darkness, and so he had hope. Neal felt only fear. 

"What are you doing out here?" he said, looking around for Gideon or Alice. They were nowhere to be found; they'd let him wander off on his own. 

Of course they had. They didn't understand what was at stake.

"I won't break," Rumple said with a smile. 

"I'm almost finished," Neal said, by way of filling the air between them. 

"And then you'll come inside?" Rumple looked hopeful for only a moment before casting his eyes down, his fingers twitching. 

"You don't want to," he murmured, and the grief in his voice tore at Neal's chest. 

"I'm not angry at you, you know?" he said, his voice hoarse. "It's not your fault."

Rumple didn't look at him, his eyes going somewhere distant. "I chose it. More than once. Now it chose me. My own fault."

"No," Neal whispered, shaking his head. His hands trembled, and his father--his father whose mind was scrambling faster and faster by the minute--noticed and snatched them up in his own. 

"Here, now..." he said, his voice as soothing as ever. Neal took a deep breath, trying to pretend he didn't notice how Rumple's skin glittered in the sun, just as it had that first morning he'd come up to their hovel without making a sound. He didn't want to remember how frightened he'd been, how inhuman his papa had seemed with hate glimmering in his eyes and blood dripping onto his boots.

His father wasn't that man anymore. Not quite.

"You see?" Rumple continued, his fingers running over the back of Neal's hands—and there Neal found the weight his father's feet had lost. "I'm here, with you. What could be so terrible, so long as we have that?"

"Papa!" Neal heard Gideon calling out and looked up. Gideon waved from the front porch and made his way down the steps towards them. He seemed in good spirits—much better than he had looked when Neal had found him sulking at school, pretending he didn’t notice how his parent’s letters had grown few and far between. He’d been making himself sick with worry, and now some color had come back to him. He was sweet and patient and the perfect companion for his ailing father. Neal was glad of it; he didn’t know what he would do, sitting in that house all day.

"You see how he shines?” Rumple murmured to himself, marveling at Gideon. Neal pretended he didn’t feel any jealousy at the remark. He loved his brother, but sometimes he felt as though he’d been the practice son, and Gideon had gotten everything good about his father and more. He was more educated, more even-tempered, and more open with the world. It wasn’t fair to resent him for it—to resent anyone for it—and Neal tried not to. But sometimes—only sometimes—he found it impossible.

"The tea's ready,” Gideon said to Rumple before looking at Neal. “It’s cold…you should come in.”

"Help your brother,” Rumple said, giving Gideon’s arm a squeeze as he began his walk back to the house.

"Papa—” both sons said at the same time. Rumple didn’t stop, but his back straightened and his head lifted, as if in pride.

"—I know my way."

They let him go, and Gideon bent down to grab up some of the firewood Neal had been chopping.

"He seems better, doesn't he?" he asked. Neal cleared his throat, unsure of how to answer.

"He's more alert, at least,” he finally said. “But you have to keep him from wandering around out here.”

“You weren’t far.”

“I could have been,” Neal said, more aggressively than he’d meant. Gideon went red.

"He misses you, when you hide out here,” he said, a brittle note of defensiveness in his voice.

Neal sighed. "Okay, I'll stop hiding. Do you want to freeze to death or starve first?"

"I can help you with the housework.”

"I don't need help."

"Well, I do.” Gideon stopped moving when he said it, and Neal could see he’d pushed Gideon into an admission he hadn’t wanted to make. His eyes were filling with tears, and he clutched the pile of wood in his arms tight against his chest. “I can't do it alone. It hurts too much. I can't..."

"Hey, hey.” Neal let the pile of firewood fall to the floor and reached out to grasp Gideon’s shoulders. “You're okay. Everything's okay. We're taking good care of him.”

Gideon's face had gone pale again, and for the first time Neal wondered if his eager-to-please brother might have duped even him.

“You know I don’t mind helping,” Gideon said, his voice strained. “But it’s not fair to make me the only one who has to sit and watch when I can’t help.”

“You're right,” Neal whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn't think...it's just that you're better at that stuff than I am."

Gideon frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You're just closer to him.” Before Gideon could move to protest, Neal held out a hand. “You know it's true."

"He thinks the world of you,” Gideon said, shaking his head. “And he trusts you implicitly, you know that? You keep him here, grounded. Secure. He knows who he is because of you. That’s what he always says. Maybe I’m more like him, in some ways. But that doesn't mean he needs you any less. It's like asking, ‘do you want a heart or a soul?’ They don't work without each other."

Neal didn’t know what to say, so he went to picking up his firewood, his hands shaking again. Gideon let the subject drop, and they made their way back to the cabin in silence.

Rumple was sitting at the kitchen table, his hands pressed tight around a mug. Alice was attempting to engage him a conversation, but he didn’t seem to be listening. Steeling himself, Neal sat down next to him. Rumple jumped in his seat and stared at him in disbelief.

“Can I sit here?” Neal asked. Of course, Rumple nodded; it looked as though he was hardly daring to breath. Neal saw Alice exchange a look with Gideon, who beckoned her over to the fire with a tilt of his head.

“I’m sorry I’ve been away so much,” Neal said, his voice low. Rumple shook his head.

“Your mind gets busy—it buzzes,” he said, waving a hand around his own skull. “Not as much outside. Away from me.”

Neal closed his eyes for a moment before taking one of his father’s hands in his own and kissing it.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said, and Rumple beamed. There was a light in his eyes Neal hadn’t seen since they’d arrived, and he turned triumphantly towards Alice.

“You see?” he told her. “I told you they both shine.”


End file.
